1 Northern Soul Scene Project Beverly Jones

Northern Soul Scene Project Beverly Jones (BJ) interviewed by Nick Wood (NW) on 7th March 2020 NW: This is an interview with Beverly Jones at the Central Library in Peterborough as part of the Jumped Up Theatre project on Northern Soul. Beverly, can you tell us where you were born, please? BJ: I was born in Doncaster. NW: And do you mind telling us when? BJ: I was born in July 1960. NW: Thank you very much indeed. I wonder if we could start by me asking you if you could tell me what it felt like for you the first time you went to a Northern Soul night. BJ: Well, I started going to the Northern Soul things at the youth club, really. Um, we had a youth club that was attached to our school. So that would have been the early ‘70s, probably ‘74, ‘75. And that's where I got introduced to the music, Northern Soul, that we…probably was Motown and old soul music at the time. So that's when I first started to hear it. And it was quite nice because it was a youth club that we could go to in the daytime as well, obviously at lunch times in the afternoons, and they had a room at the bottom that we called the soul hall and all the windows were painted out black. I think we all painted them, and we’d sit up on big benches and just listen to the music and dance. So that's where I first started to get into soul and Motown music. And from then I think the first all-nighter I would have gone to would have been at the Wirrina in Peterborough, and I would have been very young still, probably 15, and it would just have been very exciting to be going out at that time of night and being out all night in a room full of people, always busy dancing, people out in the hall in the, sort of, foyer selling records. Just met people from different parts of the country and made new friends, and just be part of this sort of sub-culture, I suppose. Different, and I just loved the music. NW: When you were at home, getting ready to go out, what would be the clothes that you would select to go out on an evening like that? BJ: Well, the clothes are quite special and in fact I do remember going to a market in Melton Mowbray with my mum, a Christmas market, and there's a store there that used to sell… obviously somebody was hand making them ‘cause they're quite unique, so for the girls it would be, um, skirts - long skirts, down to your ankles that when you, sort of, danced and spun around would spin out. They mimicked the boys Brummie trousers, the big wide, wide flares in that they had high waist bands usually with various zips and buttons and things across. You'd probably wear a vest top because it gets hot when you're dancing, and you’d probably change three or four times a night - you would go into the bathrooms to wash, change, freshen up. The shoes were particularly special. They were granny sandals and you ordered them from Kays Catalogues, and they were the peep-hole ones that literally the grannies were wearing, but they had a leather sole so they were fantastic for shuffling, dancing and sliding around in. And that would really be it. And then you’d take everything in your little bag, usually badges sewn all over from different clubs you'd been to or belong to. And yeah, it was all part and part…parcel of what we wore. And for the chaps it was the same, vest tops or the Adidas tops and…or loose shirts, but they would wear the big wide trousers. And the beer mats that you used to get on a bar in the pubs, there was a trend of 1 having them, sort of, hanging on to, sort of, wipe your brow, mop the sweat off. So yeah, that was all part and parcel of it. NW: What colour was your dress? BJ: Well, the dress…the skirts, I remember having a navy blue one. And I think had a green one. The navy blue one had a light blue band with all the buttons and the zips on and navy blue, and the green was two-tone. I'm sure they came from a market stall in Melton Mowbray near Leicester. So somebody had obviously realised can't buy these things, they had to be made. And I had a friend, Polly, that I used to go to the all-nighters with as well, and she was very clever and she used to make us things. NW: So you were all dressed up in yer skirt from the market at Melton Mowbray. How did you get from your house to the Wirrina? BJ: We must’ve got the bus into town. I don't really remember, ‘cause I obviously was too young. I used to go with my uncle and he was only 18 months older than me. Um, so we would have got the bus into town, probably gone into town somewhere first, probably The Falcon. And there was also two pubs on the square - The Bell and Oak and The Grapevine. And they were very much souly pubs and that would be quite where people would meet before an event, and everybody just walked over to the Wirrina. Um, the bus station was almost next to the Wirrina anyway, in those days, so…and I don't suppose that we’d've got in late, so yeah, by bus I would imagine. We might’ve got a lift in, I might’ve got me dad…step- dad to drop me off occasionally, but generally we probably just got the bus into town. And then we went to other places, like Cleethorpes and Nottingham. Um, I've been on a coach that was organised, met people on Peterborough Square and we went from there, or older friends that had cars, or train to various venues, so… But I was quite young, so I didn't travel that far that often. And the furthest north I went was Cleethorpes. [05:08.1] NW: For people who never experienced this, and obviously can't experience it because the Wirrina’s no longer there, if you can remember stepping into the Wirrina from the queue, what did you see? What was it like, if you could describe it to us in your mind's eye? BJ: Well when you first went through, you would be in the, sort of, main foyer. And there must have been some sort of bar selling - it wasn't alcohol, but there must have been stuff you could get. I'm not sure if there's a bar or not, but certainly not alcohol. But that would be where all the lads would sit round and that's where they would sell records. And they would sit on the floor with the record boxes and, like, you know, some people didn't dance much. It would just be they’d go for the music, buying records. And then you'd walk through a little bit where the, sort of, toilets were and then you'd be into a big, big sort of dance hall, I suppose, and a stage, ‘cause there were bands there, I’ve seen certain people there - can't remember all of them, but I know I’ve certainly seen The Exciters, um, I think…Junior Walker and the All Stars, I think, was there. So a lot of the American names of the time came. And it was just a big dance hall from what I can remember. Um, yeah. NW: Was there the big…was it like a dance…you say it’s like a dance hall where there were big velvet curtains, or…? BJ: I do remember the big, big curtains because the win…I think there were windows on both sides, but obviously all drawn because it's night and it's dark and it's the atmosphere, so 2 actually, you probably don't see it. There’d be tables round the outside, big dance hall in the middle, carpet in between and then out through to the foyer, so you kind of go between the two, sort of… I didn’t, sort of, collect records, I didn't really know much about them so I didn't really…wasn’t interested in that bit. And then people would just, sort of, sit around in their groups. Most people would be dancing. And if you were chatting to somebody…I think the nice thing was there’d be people from…from Boston, Northampton, you know, you got to make friends with lots of groups of people. You’ve all got the same interests. Didn't really seem to be a lot of trouble, not that I remember anyway. You could be chatting and somebody’d just go, “Oh, I've gotta go. My record’s on.” And then they’d just go, mid- conversation, to dance. That was it. You know, it was…the music was the key for everybody. NW: “My record’s on?” BJ: Well, it’d be their favourite record and it would just come on, and it’d be the one they liked to dance to and that’s it, so they would just go mid-conversation straight out onto the dance floor and dance.

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